Your Thursday Evening Briefing

May 7, 2020

Your Thursday Evening Briefing

By Remy Tumin and Marcus Payadue

Good evening. Here’s the latest.

Christopher Lee for The New York Times

1. The White House is battling the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention over reopening guidelines.

The C.D.C. guidance, obtained by The Times, included detailed outlines for how schools, restaurants, churches and other establishments can safely reopen. But the White House and other administration officials rejected the recommendations, citing infringements on religious rights and further risks to the economy.

More than half of the U.S. that are reopening fail to meet White House guidelines. Many of them have outbreaks at risk of worsening, experts said. Above, restaurants recently began opening in San Antonio, Texas.

Separately, new research revealed that New York City’s coronavirus outbreak grew so large by early March that it became the primary source of new infections in the U.S.

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Samuel Corum for The New York Times

2. The Justice Department is dropping charges against Michael Flynn, President Trump’s first national security adviser.

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The extraordinary reversal came after Mr. Flynn pleaded guilty twice, cooperated with investigators and spent months in a prolonged court battle.

Mr. Flynn’s lawyers had been making a sustained attack on the prosecutors and the F.B.I., and said the Justice Department had uncovered new documents that pointed to misconduct in investigators’ interview of Mr. Flynn in January 2017 — the conversation during which he admitted to lying to F.B.I. agents about his discussions with a Russian diplomat.

Source: Small Business Administration

3. A centerpiece of the government’s stimulus program directed many early loans to parts of the country that were not as hard hit, a Times analysis shows.

Government data also shows that relief funds intended for small businesses struggling during the coronavirus pandemic went to a small number of companies seeking millions in assistance. Here’s how the relief loans were distributed.

And shadows are gathering over retailers: Neiman Marcus became the first major department store to file for bankruptcy during the pandemic.

Tomorrow, we’ll be watching for the April jobs report. Today we learned that another 3.2 million Americans filed unemployment claims, adding to the more than 30 million since March.

Medical personal drawing blood for an antibody test in Chicago last week.Ashlee Rezin Garcia/Chicago Sun-Times, via Associated Press

4. Nearly everyone who has the coronavirus eventually makes antibodies, a study found, suggesting recovered patients can return to work with some form of immunity.

The new study relied on an antibody test developed at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York that has an extraordinary rate of validity, with a less than 1 percent chance of false-positives. The study had not yet been reviewed by experts, and it was unclear how long the subjects’ protection might last, but one virologist described the results as “very good news.”

This video explains how antibody testing works.

Ruth Fremson/The New York Times

5. The coronavirus is striking Latinos and African-Americans with particular force.

The numbers are stark. In Iowa, Latinos make up 6 percent of the population but account for more than 20 percent of coronavirus cases. In Washington State, they account for 13 percent of the population but 31 percent of cases. In Florida, Latinos account for two out of every five virus cases where ethnicity is known.

Above, Rafael Castillo and Yanet Gonzalez, pictured with their children in Cornelius, Ore., both had the virus.

And in Britain, black people were twice as likely to die from the infection as white people, according to official figures released on Thursday. That gap grew to four times when class and health differences were not considered. South Asians in Britain were also disproportionately hit.

Darron Cummings/Associated Press

6. The Indianapolis police killed three people in eight hours. The questions are multiplying.

Two were shootings of black men — including one who streamed the encounter live on Facebook. In the third, an officer fatally struck a pregnant woman with his car.

Above, scores of people gathered downtown today immediately following a news conference where the police released new details about what had happened.

The uproar comes on the heels of a Georgia prosecutor’s decision this week that a grand jury should weigh whether to bring charges in the killing of Ahmaud Arbery, a 25-year-old unarmed black man who was pursued by two white men as he was out running in southern Georgia. A video of his fatal shooting spread widely online.

Our Opinion columnist Charles Blow wrote about the significance of Mr. Arbery’s death. It was the most read story on our website today.

Kendrick Brinson for The New York Times

7. “Sometimes the city is like a dreamy, slowed-down version of itself.”

A daily stroll is helping many of us cope. We asked readers to tell us about their walks and what they see on their travels. Then we sent our photographers on walks of their own to translate these sentiments into images.

And Rodrigo García wrote a letter to his father in our Opinion section:

“Not a day goes by that I don’t come across a reference to your novel ‘Love in the Time of Cholera,’ or a riff on its title or to the insomnia pandemic in ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude.’ It’s impossible not to speculate about what you would have made of all this.”

Jenna Schoenefeld for The New York Times

8. The athletic world is beginning to creep toward competition again. Above, swim practice in Mission Viejo, Calif., this week.

Social-distancing restrictions differ among counties, states and countries, resulting in an uneven playing field for many athletes.

Soccer teams in Germany, Spain and Italy have resumed training; golfers are eying a late spring return; tennis pros are awaiting guidance on an altered season; and some N.B.A. training facilities may open Friday.

Tyler Kepner, our baseball writer, watched a few satisfying South Korean games played in empty stadiums. “The absence of fans is not glaring on television,” he writes.

Javier Jaén

9. Hip-hop royalty has found a new home on Instagram Live.

No subset of popular culture has evolved more rapidly, or radically, in the absence of in-person gatherings. Now there’s a new type of party that turns the platform into a nightclub, a telethon, a variety show, a history lesson, a talent show and much more.

The mood is warm nostalgia. “I love to see these greats get their flowers,” said the producer Swizz Beatz. “It’s an educational celebration.”

Maybe you’ve been turning the volume up on Dua Lipa’s upbeat new single “Physical.” The pop star explained how tarot cards, alpacas and a Persian flute sample helped make it a hit in the latest installment of our “Diary of a Song.”

Catherine Hoggins/Alamy

10. And finally, no yeast? No problem.

Pandemic bakers in some areas of the country are facing a shortage of packaged yeast, a domesticated and predictable strain. But you can coax yeast out of ingredients you’re likely to have on hand, like flour and potatoes. (The yeast is likelier to be on them than in the air.)

Making a sourdough starter with these wild strains can be a little more challenging, but it’s doable with a little patience and a lot of time.

“There’s still some people who think there’s some alchemy involved,” a baker at the King Arthur Flour Company said. “You don’t need to take a bowl out and hold it under a full moon.”

Have an enterprising night.

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